


A Load of Hogwash

by laridian, porkwithbones



Series: Forever War [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laridian/pseuds/laridian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/porkwithbones/pseuds/porkwithbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A comedy of errors in the laundry room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Load of Hogwash

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with Laridian.
> 
> Since this is being posted before our series introduction, here's a quick rundown of the characters seen here:
> 
> Lonnie - the Engineer. Older than the rest of the team.
> 
> Sasha - the Scout. Kind of squirrelly, like any Scout should be, but basically a nice kid. He's been tasked to teach English to:
> 
> Finn - the Sniper. New to the team, he's from a remote and rural part of Finland, and arrived on the team speaking no English.
> 
> Vlad - the Soldier. Team leader.
> 
> Gunter - the Medic, aka "Doc" because half the team can't pronounce his name. Also new to the team, and not very experienced at, well, pretty much any of the more practical aspects of life.

Lonnie was responsible for maintenance and repair and keeping things running. When things ran smoothly, everyone was good and no problems, and no extra work for Lonnie. Therefore he took care to keep the mechanical parts of the base in good working order.

It surprised him when Sasha ran up - Scouts were always messengers, because of their speed - to the shed where Lonnie was checking the boilers, and between pants, announced, "The laundry room's underwater!"

~ ~ ~

Not the whole room, no, but there had to be a good inch of soapy scummy water across the floor. Someone had tossed some towels near the door to keep the spillage inside the room and not out into the hallway.

The source was obvious: one washing machine, now silent, covered in a froth of bubbles, which oozed down its metal sides.

"I shut it off," Sasha said. 

"Your clothes in there?" Lonnie asked. He already suspected the cause of the problem.

"Naw, mine're here," the boy said, pointing to a full basket in the hall. "I was gonna do mine, but I saw this."

There was at least one more machine that could run, but the water had to be drained out of here. Lonnie exhaled noisily in irritation.

"Get everyone here," Lonnie said. "We're busy tonight."

~ ~ ~

Nobody was happy with the damage to the laundry room, or having to clean it up, especially not when the job promised to take the rest of the night and then they'd have to get up and fight tomorrow.

Lonnie found the problem, and it was what he'd thought: it'd been overloaded. Seriously overloaded, to where the water couldn't drain out. Someone had crammed a lot of clothes in there, and a bunch of towels, and probably extra powder, based on the foam. The only question Lonnie had, was who had that much laundry.

Vlad wanted to know that too, because someone was in trouble for this. To his surprise, Doc admitted it.

"How?" Vlad asked. He'd have pegged Doc as smarter than that. Plus nobody usually had more than two weeks of clothes, because they weren't going anywhere.

"I thought it would be more efficient to do as many as possible in one load," Doc said, acutely aware of everyone's grumbling as they mopped. 

"You don't have that many - this isn't yours." Too skinny for Doc, even.

"Minun," Finn said. "Mine."

"Finn's been washing his clothes in the sink," Doc said. "He didn't know how to use the machines."

Vlad looked at Sasha, who put his wet hands up in defense. "Hey, nobody said I had to teach him that!"

"So you decided to combine loads?" Vlad suggested.

"Well... yes. I didn't see why we couldn't. There was plenty of room. But then, I thought the more we could get in there, then it would only be one load to wash and dry, and..." Doc's voice trailed off.

Vlad rubbed his forehead. How could Doc be so smart and so ignorant at the same time?


End file.
